USA road trip, Post 2: Death Valley and Yosemite National Parks

On Sunday afternoon, September 15th, Mum, Dad, Roxy, Ben, Finley and I headed west out of Vegas with the aim of being at the sand dunes in Death Valley National Park, California, for sunset. Three years ago, Ben and I had done the same thing with Delle and got some awesome photos.

This time, however, our timing was slightly off and we missed getting to the sand dunes in time! You'll have to click on the link above to see what they're like. On this drive we had a little boy who napped very well for the start of the drive, but later on was (quite understandably) unhappy about still being in his car seat. I had gone to the trouble of finding out the exact sunset time in Death Valley that day, but hadn't factored in quite enough stopping/ feeding/ changing/ cuddling time, so it was already dark by the time we reached the dunes. Oh well, it's all part of the experience of road tripping with a baby!

Here are some family photos we took at the entrance of the National Park...

Once we knew we wouldn't get to the dunes in time, we stopped at a lookout that seemed surprisingly busy considering how deserted the roads felt. Only Ben and Dad had the energy to walk up the hill to see the view though! Did I mention that Death Valley is the lowest, hottest and driest place in North America? It holds the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth: 57 degrees Celsius in 1913. It would have only been in the 30s while we were there this time, but that feels plenty hot enough to me now that I've acclimatised to Canadian temperatures! Here's the view from the lookout...

That night we stayed at the Dow Villa Motel in Lone Pine, California. It was the same place Delle, Ben and I had stayed in 2010. This time we'd booked one room for all six of us, but due to an extremely fortuitous mistake on the part of the front desk clerk (he'd accidentally cancelled our booking weeks earlier when someone else had called to cancel theirs), we ended up getting the motel's last three double rooms for the same price! I particularly liked this little sign in each of the rooms...

View from the Dow Villa

Monday was our biggest driving day - about 6.5 hours (550 kms) in total. We were en route to San Francisco, via Yosemite National Park. Again we were a little unlucky with our National Park intentions! There were wildfires in parts of the park, although that didn't affect us other than seeing some smoke and burnt areas, and having to drive at 10km/hr for about half an hour while we passed through a fire zone. However, the waterfall we had walked to on our last visit to Yosemite, and decided to walk to on this visit too, had dried up due to it being the end of summer! We still climbed up on some rocks, saw a deer and some squirrels, and ate a picnic lunch in the park.

Passing through Bishop, CA

"Aussie" licorice at a shop in California

Yosemite National Park

Spot Ben and Finley!

Winding hillside roads after Yosemite

That afternoon we drove the rest of the way to the California coast, and stayed the night in Alameda, a town outside of San Francisco.

To be continued...

USA road trip, Post 1: Las Vegas

On Friday, September 13th, Ben, Finley and I flew to Las Vegas, Nevada, to join up with Mum, Dad, Roxy and Nathan. The four of them had driven over 2100 kms from Calgary to Las Vegas over the preceding 6 days. We were joining them for the remaining 9 days of the trip, during which we would drive over 2600 kms from Las Vegas back to Vancouver, via California and the Oregon coast. Our road trip vehicle was the 7-seater Honda Odyssey minivan we had purchased for the respective grandparents' visits.

Blue - Mum, Dad, Roxy and Nathan drove this part
Red - Where we all met up (and Nathan flew home from)
Green - All except Nathan drove this part

Our flight from Vancouver to Vegas was Finley's first flight, at 7.5 months old, and he did very well! He received a "My First Flight" sticker from the airport staff, but we were unable to get any good photos of it or its post-demise replacement, "Honorary Captain", before they were chewed up. ;) He charmed the airport staff, flight attendants and other passengers, napped during takeoff and the first part of the flight, and was very curious about all the goings on in the plane cabin. We couldn't have asked for more! We were also pleased with the personal welcome and friendly advice we received from the WestJet cabin crew.

Just before Finley's first flight (with our plane in the background)

After landing in Vegas around 1pm, we took a taxi from the airport to our motel, a cheap and rather dodgy-looking place near the Las Vegas Convention Centre. We checked in, established that our rooms were perfectly adequate despite the motel's grungy exterior, and headed out on foot to have lunch at The Peppermill Restaurant, just across the parking lot. This turned out to be quite a fun start to our 2 days in Vegas: the restaurant was "old school Vegas", with lots of neon lights, cushy horseshoe-shaped booths, and ridiculous uniforms on the waitresses. Our meals were delicious and sizeable, and we even received a free photo of ourselves dining there.

While we were at The Peppermill, Mum, Dad, Roxy and Nathan arrived at the motel and checked in. (Actually, Nathan, who was a late addition to this road trip so had been booking accommodation upon arrival, decided to stay at the hotel across the road. I meant it when I said ours looked dodgy!) After everyone was reunited, we spent a few hours hanging out in air-conditioned comfort before jumping in the van to drive to Caesar's Palace for dinner at the Bacchanal Buffet.

Advertising for this 600-seat, 500-plus-dish buffet restaurant was plastered all over Vegas's buses, taxis and billboards with the line "Awarded Best Buffet in Vegas by USA Today". Thus, it was extremely popular and we had to wait in line for about an hour before we could even get in! The buffet cost about $40 per person and was indeed exceptionally good. I sincerely regretted my sizeable lunch, as I could not even come close to doing it justice. Mum, Dad, Roxy and Nathan had wisely skipped lunch. Unfortunately we took no photos, but it was certainly impressive, scrumptious and memorable!

The next day, Saturday, we spent the day exploring a few of the impressive casinos. We travelled around via the Las Vegas Monorail, a new experience for Ben and I despite this being our third time in Vegas. Roxy and Nathan headed off to the south end of the Strip while Ben, Finley and I showed Mum and Dad The Venetian. (Though we were sad to discover that the indoor canal - our favourite thing at the Venetian - had been drained for renovations!) We all met up for lunch in the Venetian. As Nathan flew home from Vegas very early the following morning, this post-lunch pic is the only photo we have of all of us...

Here are some other photos from our afternoon...

The Rialto Bridge in front of the Venetian

Caesar's Palace, where we'd dined the night before

The Las Vegas Strip

We made sure to take Mum and Dad to The Bellagio, our personal favourite of all the casinos. The Conservatory and Botantical Gardens are amazing, and the Chihuly glass ceiling feature wows me every time. The Conservatory theme this time was "Autumn Harvest" - see below; it was magnificent! It was a very rushed visit, as we were en route to putting Mum and Dad on the Monorail to meet up with Roxy and Nathan at the MGM Grand to see a Cirque du Soleil show, KA (which Ben and I had seen and loved on our first trip to Vegas in 2009). We didn't have time to stop and wait for the half-hourly musical fountain show in front of the Bellagio, but luckily they were able to see it late that night after seeing KA.

Glass ceiling by Dale Chihuly

Bellagio Conservatory musicians

Autumn Harvest theme

Mum and Dad in front of the musical fountain pond

After our frantic rush to get Mum and Dad to the Monorail on time, Ben, Finley and I had the rest of the evening to ourselves while the others saw their Cirque show. Following much deliberation about our baby-friendly entertainment options, we had eventually decided we would all be happiest if we just went to another buffet. We'd looked up the other top-ranking buffet restaurants (excluding the Bellagio's buffet, as we'd eaten there in 2010 with Delle) and decided on The Buffet at the Wynn. This was a casino we had never been inside before, so we got to see another impressive one. It was classy and magical, with fairy-lit trees and a collection of eye-catching ceiling lights.

Our evening at the Wynn's buffet turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. As it was not being advertised all over town as the number one buffet, we were able to go straight in without queuing. It cost about $30 per person. We were more in the mood for a buffet this time, having done a lot of walking that day (plus Ben had skipped lunch due to still being full from the previous night!). I attacked the buffet with a careful strategy (i.e. visiting the sections in order, and only taking tiny portions), which meant I felt like I did it justice and didn't get full before I made it all the way around. Although there were less options than at the Bachannal, we thought the food was just as good.

Finley was more well rested this night too, and eating held his attention longer than it has EVER done any other time - he tried all sorts of goodies (from cheese and breadsticks to lamb roast with mint sauce!), and kept munching while Ben and I took it in turns to make multiple trips to the buffet. He simultaneously wooed our fellow diners, restaurant staff, and random passersby. That's our boy!! It was a wonderful evening.

Afterwards, we were close enough to our motel that it made sense to walk back rather than take the Monorail. I think we achieved a few more hours sleep than Mum, Dad, Roxy and Nathan, who made the most of their chance to experience Vegas at night!

The next morning, Sunday, the remaining six of us (Nathan was on his way home by then) headed to the meeting. Afterwards were invited for lunch at the home of a young family, Brian and Anna and their daughter. We had a really nice time getting to know them and eating a delicious lunch... but again we didn't get any photos!

By mid afternoon we needed to leave for our sunset destination: Death Valley National Park. To be continued...